They bowed their heads for the standard prayers. My attention returned to the girls, and I did my best to continue to treat them like any other students. We chatted a bit, much less formally than I normally did on these calls, but I explained why Molly would be coming home with a sore rear and eventually hung up, after agreeing that we needed to meet for coffee soon. It was a first for me, in that I didn’t need to look up the number. “In this office, you will refer to me as ma’am.” I may have said that with a bit more force than I should have, because Emily nearly jumped – but it got the proper response out of her. “So, ladies, can’t keep quiet in class?” I asked “Sorry Mom,” Emily replied. They knew they were in trouble, but I had to get them into ‘student mode’. But to Emily I was ‘Mom’ and even with Molly, I was a much more familiar presence in her life. The rest saw me as Mrs Johnson, teacher and vice-principal. I looked up and saw that they were certainly nervous to be there, but there was a different ‘vibe’ from most of the girls I had seen. I moved to the write-up – and it was a fairly standard offence, repeated talking and disrupting class. It was, of course, their first time there and their files were pretty thin.
I called the girls in to my office and gestured for them to take a seat. Molly and Emily had been close since kindergarten and this certainly wasn’t the first time they had misbehaved together. I was not, however, surprised to see next to her name that of her best friend, whom I will call Molly for the sake of this story. Somehow, though, I was surprised to see her name come across my desk the first time. In retrospect, I guess I should have been mentally prepared for her eventually being written up and having to see me in an official capacity – after all, she had certainly not been perfectly behaved at home. She eventually entered seventh grade and came under my authority at school. Our third child was our first girl, Emily. The belt danced on their bottoms at home and life moved on. Not too surprisingly, both made the occasional trip to the office and were paddled, but not by me.
I was their teacher at one point, and that presented a few awkward moments, but not a big deal. Our first two children were both boys, so they didn’t present an overly large issue in my job. About a year after I first took the position of vice principal, I was married – and, as you might expect, children quickly followed.
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